


Broken Circle

by TheEarlyKat



Series: Warden Leverette [10]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, You know what goes down in this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-05-29 19:53:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 14,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6391000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheEarlyKat/pseuds/TheEarlyKat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>A curse would kill him one day, whether it be the Taint crawling through his veins or a sword through his chest for his magic. It was fate, some Maker-made game, that connected the two together. To leave the Circle he had to join the Wardens. To join the Wardens, he had to make peace with the Circle.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> One day I'll make a summary that's not words from the fic. Also, I've gotten another piece of art for [Levy!](http://theearlykat.tumblr.com/post/141861055064/darktown-d-i-got-levy-commissioned-by-the)

Smoke curled from the top of the tower, thick and heavy enough to keep the fog rolling across Lake Calenhad pressed against the gentle waves rather than thinned out in the sun. It stung their eyes and filled their mouths, even with their high collars pulled as far as they would go. Their eyes watered but Leverette was the only one that let the tears roll steadily down his cheeks. It made it nearly impossible to see the way ahead, but the lake was miles of open water free of any hidden bars or sunken mountains, but if the captain of the skiff had any worries Leverette would heat the air around them with a simple spell to clear the path. The sudden clarity always shocked him, and he found himself keeping his eyes on the lacquered boards of the floor.

He hadn’t truly wanted to return to the Circle. He was as free as any mage could be - out of one system and into another. Although, he supposed, the Wardens asked for blood and the Chantry wanted nothing to do with it. Still, a curse would kill him one day, whether it be the Taint crawling through his veins or a sword through his chest for his magic. It was fate, some Maker-made game, that connected the two together. To leave the Circle he had to join the Wardens. To join the Wardens, he had to make peace with the Circle, and Leverette’s knees had gone weak when the templar nervously turned their request to take the boat aside. His stutter gave some danger away - as if the Circle wasn’t a danger on its own - and where Levy was ready to leave Kinloch Hold to its fate, Alistair wanted to defend it.

Leverette had forgotten the man had been in templar training.

It wasn’t much of a home, but it was where the man was raised for some significant part of his life. Leverette could understand wanting to bring down whatever threatened his home - he had brought down what threatened his home once before; he had no right to deny Alistair this. Not when it meant saving the Wardens he called a family. He just wished it hadn’t been the Circle.

He’d flashed the treaty before the new templar could give them another apology and let Alistair demand the boat ride. Not minutes after they were piling into the small, flat boat, and Leverette’s heart beat hard in time with the soft slap of waves against the paddles. Sometime during the ride Zevran slipped his hand into his and the elf made no comment on his tight but thankful hold.

With the smoke, Leverette now understood why the templar had been so uneasy to talk about the tower. Something dark was prowling its bowels, something that would harm the reputation of the Circles. If word got out about a mistake, their inability to handle those mistakes, funding and esteem would drain from them, and who would be left to protect the people of Thedas from the mages? Where would the coin to pay for their prison come from? Was it so bad to let a demon or two roam the Bannorn for a day for that?

It was, apparently, for the templars.

The sound of marching and armor plates clanking had him on edge the second the main doors were heaved open. A rush of stale air flooded out the strong scent of lyrium and sweat, making him dizzy with the instinct to flee for some protected, hidden corner fighting with his duty of a Warden and the promise to help Alistair. His hand was still intertwined with Zevran’s and he stumbled after the elf when he followed the others into the main hall with nothing more than a soft moan of protest. Leverette was still trying to shake off the chilly fingers running down his spine when Greagoir stopped them.

“Well look who’s back! And a proper Grey Warden now, eh? Glad to see you’re not dead.” Leverette swallowed the bile rising in his throat and answered with a wordless nod.

“What’s going here?” Alistair asked. His shoulders were stiff as he adapted a posture much like the other armored persons in the room. Leverette tried not to notice it.

The Knight-Commander’s gaze slipped from Leverette to Alistair. “I’ll speak plainly. The tower is no longer under our control. We were too complacent. We thought the incident with Jowan isolated - but now this.” He shook his head. “Now abominations and demons stalk our halls.”

“We’ve come here to he-”

Greagoir raised a gauntleted fist to point at Leverette. The mage flinched back and Morrigan shoved him forward when he stepped on her toes. “Don’t think I don’t remember what happened the last time you helped. Irving, too. He should have come to me immediately. I should have made him-” Alistair cleared his throat and the Knight-commander swallowed his threat, much to Leverette’s relief. “Yes, right, we have more pressing matters to attend to.”

“What can you tell us?” Alistair spoke again, and Levy was willing to let him. This had been his idea, and his station before the Wardens. Of course he would want to take charge. He’d nearly been a part of this. It pained him to think of the clumsy man tripping over Morrigan’s obvious trap before the fire every night as a man who could lock up innocents, but if having him speak took the attention away, he was glad to have him.

“Not much,” Greagoir admitted. “We weren’t there for the start and found only demons hunting templars and mages alike. I knew my men couldn’t take them all so I’ve gathered them here and barricaded the doors-”

“To let them die,” Leverette choked out.

The templar’s mouth tightened. “I’ve sent to Denerim for the Right of Annulment, yes.”


	2. Chapter 2

Leverette’s vision was graying. Shock gripped his throat like a tight fist to choke the air from his lungs even as his pounding heart had him wheezing in quick, short breaths. Blood drained from his face to leave him pale and his hands cold but the Knight-Commander’s gaze held him firm and challenged him to fall. Levy swayed, instead, and Zevran was at his side in an instant to let him lean on him. Alistair was closer, easier to catch him, but he was frozen in his armor at the news.

“Breathe, amor,” the elf whispered, drawing in his own slow, deep breath, letting the mage feel the rise and fall of his chest against his back. Leverette watched him with glassy eyes, pupils wide. He tried, struggling against the panic settling deep in his gut and growing, fast, to wrap around his bones and squeeze his lungs tighter. He could have been in there. He _should_ have been in there, somewhere in the tower, watching what little he had burn with no chance to escape because the _templars_ feared death. Zevran placed a hand at the small of his back, bringing him to the present, and Levy sucked in a shaky breath. “What is this Rite,” the elf muttered.

“A death sentence,” Alistair answered. Zevran’s ear twitched.

“A necessary evil,” Greagoir corrected. “It’s too painful to hope for survivors and find…nothing.”

“Hope for survivors?” The lack of air made him dizzy, disoriented, _brave_. He was talking back to a templar, standing up for himself. He didn’t shift away from Zevran but he pushed through the shake in his voice to be heard. “You’re hoping to find your templars, not survivors. That implies everyone locked up inside there right now.”

“You know what my duty is,” Greagoir snapped.

Leverette’s eyes narrowed. “I do, Knight-Commander. Very well.” The glare he received did more than remind him of the night’s patrols marching through the halls, the ringing of steel-clad boots echoing like an ill omen and the laughter of their owners when they dragged a mage up from the cellars, dead-eyed and skinnier than when they left. It was as much as reminder as a promise, and he would not let the Knight-Commander get away with murdering more mages.

“Then you know that everything in the tower must be destroyed in order to make it safe again.”

Leverette squared his shoulders and he felt Zevran’s hand tighten its hold. “It will be safe again. Let me inside. I’ll find your survivors. And mine.”

Greagoir snorted and crossed his arms. “Will you? An abomination by itself is a force to be reckoned with, and I assure you that you will be facing more than one.”

He grit his teeth. “I know much about abominations, Ser.”

The templar’s brow rose before settling into a furrow deeper than before. “I suppose you have,” he sighed. His mouth twisted into a scowl. “If you do this, the Circle will owe you much. Perhaps enough to pledge the templars to your cause?” Leverette’s stomach rolled at the suggestion. It was one last ploy to get him to turn around, but he had come too far to be pushed back by the threat. Alistair hadn’t taken the out, and the reason for coming in the first place was for him. Leverette would do it for him. He’d do it for the mages in the tower. He’d do it for himself. Kinloch hold was not a home, would never be a home, but it had been a roof over his head. It was more to others, and it would be nothing if they were dead. “There is one final condition. The doors will be closed behind you and will not be opened again unless I have proof of your success.”

“I’ll bring the First Enchanter,” Leverette agreed.

Greagoir nodded. “If Irving has fallen before you bring him before me, I will tear this Circle down.”

“We’ll get him.” Zevran surprised them all by responding. His hand was a fist against his back, trembling, and Leverette took it in his grasp when the Knight-Commander walked away to attend to some other business, or find a better hiding place he thought with a scowl, holding it tight until the elf’s clenched fingers relaxed.

“I had thought, the way you are, the way you act…” Zevran shook his head and spread his fingers to let Levy slip his between them. His tone lightened. “In Antiva we have a tower where the mages go, as well. I have not gone there myself - the prices are too high for a vacation, you see - but I know it different from this. This is…the Crows did not give me a choice. I was bought and sold and the deal was done. I was a Crow whether I lived through the training or not.” Leverette met his eyes, hard and unwavering. “This was a home to you as the Crows were a home to me. It is not a place to think back on when the road is long and the wind is strong, but I would kill - have killed - to belong.” He shrugged. “Now, however…”

Leverette squeezed his hand. “We’re going to save them.”

Alistair was waiting by the door after have spoken to the templar stationed before them. He nodded as they approached and gave the man the word to open the way. Leverette steeled himself as they were pushed open with a clang.

“I know it’s not something you want to hear,” Alistair started, and Leverette finished for him.

“Then why say it?” The arguement with the Knight-Commander had done nothing for his mood and Zevran’s determination only added to his.

The man gave a shaky laugh. “I just wanted to say, you know, before we run head first into a demon-infested hall with no option to turn back, while that option is still _open_ \- it’s likely the mages are already dead. The abominations left need to be dealt with, and, well, you heard the Knight-Commander. This won’t be easy.”

Leverette rounded on Alistair. “ _This_ won’t be easy? _Saving the Circle tower_ won’t be easy?” He reeled back, nose wrinkled, shame and hurt and anger coloring his face as much as his words. “Being a Grey Warden isn’t easy! Convincing everyone to follow up on ages old treaties isn’t easy! Rebuilding an Order everyone despises and saving the Maker-damned world from the bloody Archdemon isn’t easy!” The doors stopped in their halt to close, several heads peeking through the crack still available to use as an escape and it carried his shout back to the templars behind them. Leverette jabbed a finger at Alistair before training it on the space. “You wanted to come here. You wanted to rebuild the order. You want to let the tower fall. You’re just like the templars - Maker’s balls - you _were_ a templar!”

Alistair paled. “Not a templar. I never took the lyrium. Duncan-”

“Found you in the templar barracks,” Leverette confirmed. “I won’t have a templar step one foot on those stairs to save the mages.”

“Amor, he is trying to help,” Zevran reminded him with a soft word and a softer touch.

“I am! I do want to rebuild the Wardens and the Circle-”

“Then do it from outside,” Leverette snapped. “I’ve seen how much the templars help. The other mages know, too. The last thing we need is one more mage panicking and doing something drastic because they think the templars have finally come for them.”

Armored boots marched away and the doors closed on after them to slam with a finality when the bar was shoved back into place. There was no going back, no regretting, and Leverette drew a breath between clenched teeth. If there was anything he could do for the mages, for the Wardens, it would be this.

“Let’s go.”

“After you, dear Warden.”


	3. Chapter 3

What disaster the templars cowarded from behind a locked and barred door had moved on the first floor of the tower. The evidence of its destruction came with soot swept in corners and ice melting from the ceiling, where hastily cast offensive spells had gone wide and missed their target. Doors were flung open, some entirely off their hinges, to reveal rooms of study in disarray. Tables were turned over, desks knocked around, all manners of pages and potions smashed on the floors. Leverette stepped carefully around a potion that glimmered green with a rat frozen on its edges - something to mimic a paralysis spell - to inspect the full extent of the damage, and recoiled at another puddle. 

Blood. It oozed across the stone floor from its owner, propped up against a shelf of the study's minor library, a mockery of the main one further ahead. His head was lolled back to reveal the wound crossing his neck, deep and dry. His robes were crusted with more. 

"Zevran." The elf nodded and approached with sure steps to crouch down alongside the body and press two fingers on the dead man's wrist. Leverette shuddered, his own hands curling to rid themselves of the imagined touch of cold, clammy flesh. 

"It was not long ago. I cannot say when, but there is little stiffness." Zevran dropped the arm and paused to wipe his hands on his shirt before rising. "Levy-"

He didn't know his his hands were slowly clouding up with smoke until the elf called to him, and he relaxed his grip to let ash sprinkle to the floor. "They're killing the mages," he rasped. "They were killing them even before they hid!" The would was too easy to mark as the work of a sword blade, one like every templar carried. He'd seen drawings of demons and undead with their fade-tinged weapons, ragged and rusty, and none would split skin so smoothly. How much time had the mage had to explain himself before the naked steel was at his throat, halting all words? Was he given the breath for one last plea before he was sent to the Maker's side for nothing more than a misunderstanding? His palms were warming again and he exhaled, hard, spitting smoke, before turning. "I need to find out what happened."

There was more blood up ahead, splatters that circled the tower towards the stairwell, and they followed it with hard set faces to the library, Leverette leading with long strides and Zevran jogging to keep up. The mess in the classrooms was almost clean compared to the holes in the walls and toppled statues. The mage ignored it all for the corpses that leaned against bookcases, their spread limbs gangly. They had to have been forced their rather than simply dying there in place, dragged there by the templars to make it look like an accident. One, closest to the center of the mess, held a book clutched tight in its arms, and Leverette book rested in the hands of one, and Leverette reluctantly tugged it out of its grasp to learn what harm could come from reading that required death. 

As soon as his hands touched the bindings, voices assaulted him. They read the words blurring across the pages as tears sprang to his eyes at the bombardment of noise - sweet promises hissed at him beneath angry, barked, demands, and louder, still, the call of hunger. For pain, for death, for blood. The demons pressed close and Leverette's hands curled tighter into the pages, unable to let go as the force of them held him in place even as his knees trembled as mana was ripped from his veins to fuel their screaming. His skull was too small to fit them all, both his own mind and the Fade, and pain pounded through his head. He could taste blood and bile in the back of his throat but before it could rise further the book was ripped from his hands and tossed across the room. Leverette stumbled forward, after it, and wiry arms caught him to keep him upright. 

"Amor, amor." Zevran's hands slipped beneath his arms to pull him into a tight embrace, one hand curling tight around his shoulder to ground him while the other rubbed circles along his lower back. "What was that?"

Leverette spat out the sick in his mouth and wiped at his face with a shaking hand. "Blood magic." An abomination or two was one matter, but demons consorted with through blood magic? The templars hadn't told him that. To save face? This was their job. They weren't stationed in the Circles to brutalize the innocents for something they couldn't control. They were the last option to protect others in case of a demon outbreak - and they were running scared. 

"I would advise againt any further touching of books, yes?" 

The mage nodded and let himself rest in Zevran's hold for a moment longer before drawing himself up once more. "There'll be demons up ahead," he warned. 

"We only need to find this First Enchanter?"

"I'd like to save anyone we come across - if he can," Levy added.

Zevran nodded. "I am with you." 

A ghost of a smile crossed Levy's lips and he bent down to press a light kiss at the corner of the elf's mouth. "Thank you." 

He waved a hand. "Did you think I would be willing to let people die?" Leverette raised a brow and he chuckled. The sound was oddly placed in such a room full of death and past horrors. "That is only when I am being paid, dear Warden. Come, we are wasting time." 

Levy grimaced and turned from the room. Guilt quickened his steps. While he was reveling in the feeling of being right, of doing something good, there were mages above in danger. He was no worse than the templars, putting himself before them, and he took the stairs two at a time make up for lost time. He would not let them have that victory. He would find Irving, save those mages that could, and expell the demons from the tower, if he could -

Get through the barrier at the top of the landing. The magic buzzing in the back of his head, warming his blood as it pooled just beneath the skin of his hands, ready for the first demon he came across, went quiet and goosebumps raced along his arms at the sudden loss of heat, when he came in contact with the shimmering veil. Another voice, softer and sweeter, honey without the threat of flies after, brushed against his mind. Spirits? Had the Veil been torn by demons so throughly even they were pulled into the waking world? 

"Just a moment!" The call was muffled through the barrier, but the fight was not. A bolt of spirit energy felled a nearby abomination before it could notice them and shocked in place long enough for a mage to whack it hard with the butt of her staff. Leverette pushed against the barrier, impatiently, when an aging mage scolded her recklessness. 

"Meji!" 

The younger mage, dark-skinned with darker hair, had to stand on her toes and lift her chin to peer over the woman's shoulder at the call of her name, and Leverette didn't see her fierce grin until she was darting around to meet him at the barrier. He lifted a hand and when the barrier fell with a scoff from the older women who'd put it up, she slapped it in greeting. 

"Nice timing," she teased. 

"This is no joke." The woman had her hands on her hips and though her mouth was lined in wrinkles, it wasn't difficult to find the frown amongst them. The graying hair that had been pulled into a tight bun was escaping its confines of the band to stick to her forehead with sweat. "We have no time-"

"I know, Wynne," Leverette interrupted, and winced when the frown grew. "Someone was messing with blood magic. There's abominations and demons and Greagoir wants to annul the Circle to stop it." Meji cursed, a mix of Elven and Common, and the older mage dropped her hands back to sides in resignation. 

"Have you come to warn us then? Of the Annulment? They wouldn't open the doors unless they intended to attack for themselves. Does Greagoir assumes us all dead?"

"We can be very persuasive," Zevran answered. 

"You know we cannot hope to stand against them all," Wynne told him. 

"Persuasive," he added, with a grin. 

Leverette caught their attention again with a tap of his staff against the floor. "I need to know if Irving is still alive. Greagoir said he would only stop the attack if Irving proves the tower clear."

"If anyone could survive this, it would be the First Enchanter," Wynne answered. "It was he who gathered the children to bring them here, and bade me to watch over them." Meiju pouted and crossed her arms. "As well as her." Wynne sighed and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I would not leave them. The barrier on the other side will need to be dispelled for you to access the rest of the tower, but I will not leave the children to fend for themselves." 

"Meji will come." Leverette glanced down at her and her eyes brightened. 

"So I can wring the Knight-Commander's neck when we get done beating the demons back to the Fade?"

He chuckled. "I'll lift you up so you can reach it." She whacked her staff against his shin. 

"I trust you to have him bring the rest of us down before you do," Wynne muttered. She wiped her hands on her robes before moving to a similarly shining barrier on the entrance to the stairwell to the next floor. "You've returned to Kinloch once now. I hope to see you return again." 

"On better conditions," Leverette agreed. The barrier went down and he pulled the two elves through it before it could form again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meji is an OC created by [oakhanshield](http://oakhanshield.tumblr.com/). We've been discussing our Wardens and their timelines, and at this point, their friendship is canon. You can read their initial meeting [here](http://theearlykat.tumblr.com/post/141846082319/oakhanshield-i-give-you-leverette-and-meji)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added a warning because things are getting kind of bloody. I should have done it last chapter, but, whoops :/

The warded off room had provided a brief respite from the horrors of the Circle. With little bloodshed in the area and the room muffled from outside sound, it had felt more like the welcome Leverette anticipated when he was to visit Kinloch Hold for the treaties. The argument with Greagoir was even somewhat expected; meeting an old friend and an older teacher furthered the illusion. 

Reality was quick to come as they left the barrier behind. The familiar mood sobered quickly as the faint pulse of spirit magics was overwhelmed by the harsher flickerings of isolated fires, and the shimming glyphs were replaced by wretched doors. The damage only intensified the further forward they moved. Where red dotted the walls on the floors beneath, it now congealed like ulcers within the halls. Leverette was mindful to step around them he could and careful to remove them with a controlled burst of flame when he couldn't. The way it clung to the stones was unlike anything he'd seen something organic do, and he shuddered to think what caused it. 

Zevran shared his misgivings, and whether Meji was unnerved with the sight or not, she covered all of her emotions with talk, projecting her voice loud and strong to best keep their spirits up. At least, Leverette hoped she was somewhat phased by the current events. This was as much as home to him as it was hers, and while it was far from a true home as anything, it was the place they called theirs for years; ruin such as this was unsettling to the core. 

"You know Uldred, right? Bald, weird eyebrows? Of course you know Uldred." She waved a hand dismissively. "He was doing something - I thought he started a new club, alright. He was gathering people together every so often and they'd do some whispering, but, really, who isn't doing at least a little bit of whispering around here? Didn't think much of it - no did, I think. But then he cut his hand and the templars started cutting mages and when the first demon showed up -" 

"Mi novia, I think it best not to mention," Zevran murmured. 

Meji shut her mouth, tight-lipped, and glared hard at the elf before turning her hard gaze to the hall before them. Zevran was trying to make the situation easier for him, and Leverette appreciated it - just the knowledge that the elf would risk the mage's ire for his sake was enough to soothe at lease one nerve - but he found the silence worse than the chatter. As horrible as his old friend's retelling was, it was noise that covered their footsteps echoing down the corridors and muffled the cries of the injured or the stomping of the frightened above. He was pale and shaking by the time they reached the next stairwell. The sounds were getting to him, reminding him that this could have been him if things were different. 

It seemed like a lifetime ago that he was walking the halls as an apprentice, his chin tucked low against his chest and eyes planted firmly on the floor just before slippered feet as he roamed from class to class with a book clutched tightly against his chest, as if the loose bindings could provide some kind of safety from the templars. Yet he was finding it easy to walk the same path from one stairwell to the next, falling into the same mindset, and more than once he had to force his gaze up and forward to avoid walking into one of the fleshy masses sticking to the walls. If things had been only unfolded differently in just the slightest - if his Harrowing had been a day different from that of Duncan's arrival or if his dorm room had been just a floor away - was likely another mage would be in his place, fighting Darkspawn free of the Circles, currently stalking the corridors. That was, if they thought the Circle needing saving. Not many, he thought, would take it upon themselves to help those that hurt day in and day out. 

That was why he was doing this. There would be less hurt if he could help. No more mages would be harmed this day - if he could just get to Irving...Leverette reached a hand out towards her and she grabbed a hold of it, squeezing it gently when he apologized with a slight tightening of of his grip. "I remember Uldred."

There were panicked mages and templars alike on the next floor. With one final landing above them, they'd holed themselves up in the relative safety of the dorms. There were no windows, there, and what doors separated the rooms were heavy and could be double locked. The templars were clustered together, sword drawn for the next wave of demons or abominations, and they rushed at Leverette and his companions with wild eyes and wilder cries. He felt no remorse as their frightened screams cracked and turned to ones of pain as he heated their weapons until the skin of her palms blistered and they were forced to drop their swords. He remembered the open throat of the mage on the first floor and burned their plate that much hotter. Let them have scars of their own to remember this day by as well. 

He was less motivated to attack the mages that rounded on their own. His stomach twisted when they drew pointed staves and stolen daggers across their palms, forcing him to defend himself. Blood magic, he reminded myself, when he froze one to the spot with a concentration Winter's Grasp. They weren't in their right minds, held captive by demons, their fears made real by their whispered promises, and they were doing what they could to prevent their demise like any man would. Nausea still rolled, strong, as he inhibited them from further advances. He was braving the tower for them; he would not harm them. 

"You're sure Uldred did all of this?" Leverette asked, when they found a room free of most corruption. Both he and Meji were lightheaded and breathless from casting and Leverette swayed to a bed that still held a mattress to rest on until his headache finished pounding against his skull. A mage had been hiding in a closet and he had half a mind to join the man in its dark and cool refuge. 

Meji shook her head. "He was planning something with some of the other mages. I guess it was blood magic, or escaping, or using blood magic to escape, since, well." She tossed her hand out to encompass the state of the room with its overturned bunks and scatter chests of belongings that most likely no longer had mages to belong to. "He did a shit job of keeping it quiet, right? Greagoir sent some people up when someone told and they panicked but I guess Uldred had for them to come from all along. The idiot screwed it up for everyone, right?"

"Right," he muttered. He couldn't blame them for their motives, but he could blame their procedure. Set because of the templars. "We should keep moving before anyone else is hurt."

"In a moment," Zevran hushed. He stood watch by the one door in the corner of the room, ears pricked forward in interest at a sound. Leverette's staff was back in his hand, wood warm from lingering magic, and he shuffled to stand behind the elf. It was easy to peer over him, more so when Zevran was crouched, daggers ready in his grips, to launch himself out as the shadow of an incoming enemy grew larger on the wall. 

"Wait, no." Leverette grabbed Zevra's shoulder before he could strike and slipped around him. The shadow paused and the mage lowered his staff, ignoring Zev's hissed plea to be careful. "Owain? What are you doing?"

"Owain?" Meji shoved passed Zevran to stand besides Levy. 

"I remember you, yes. I was trying to tidy up but there was little I could do for most of the mess."

Zevran raised a brow. "You did not try to leave?"

"I did, when it grew quiet," the man responded with a slight nod of his head. "That was when I came across the barrier. I could not pass, so I returned."

He swore. "There are demons and madmen running about and you thought to return? Where said demons and madmen were still currently running about?"

Leverette laid a hand on his shoulder with a soft noise. ""He doesn't know any better. No one was here to tell him not to come back up." What did Zevran know of the Tranquil and their limited thought? The way it stopped any independency. He could see the brand resting above Owain's untroubled brow. It was like a memory when his eyes drifted to it, the threat of Tranquility hanging over him so often for so long made his forehead itch with the need to rub a finger across the skin to ensure it wasn't truly there. "Wynne would have opened the door for you if you asked."

"It's familiar here. I preferred it." Zevran snorted but Leverette nodded in assurance. 

"Go back down and ask for Wynne. She'll get you someplace safe."

"I would prefer not to die," the Tranquil told him, and Levy nodded again. "I would prefer the tower go back to the way it was."

"It will," he assured. "Go downstairs. Ask for Wynne." 

Owain excused himself and Leverette watched him leave, only moving when the man made it past the door. "Let's get things back to normal."

Meji scoffed.


	5. Chapter 5

Both the mages were thankful for the templars and abominations that filled the upper floor of the tower. The screams of the frightened and the hissing of wraiths cut into any attempted conversation and little could be said when they needed to slip down halls unseen. Their mouths were dry, tongues heavy and lips pressed together tight to keep words they'd rather not speak aloud, even to each other, slip out. Leverette could feel the question humming on Zevran's mouth, the bright eyes trained on his back and pulling his shoulders down with their weight, and quickened his pace. They weren't much further from Irving's study at the very top of the Circle.

They paused at a corner that turned to the last stretch of the hallway and Leverette pressed himself flat against the wall before peering around. What abominations were in the last rooms had been taken care of, sent back to the Fade to prey on the dreams of the sleeping rather than the fears of the living, the templars sent back to Greagoir on the main floor with promises of safety gone unheard or simply untrusted when spoken by a mage. There was only a handful of blood mages left, and Uldred, if he still lived. 

Levy called his magic close, easy to do where the Veil was already so thin from the demons pressing close, and static gathered across his skin. Frost made his fingertips turn blue as he held the spell ready to toss at any charging mage. 

"Owain as a Tranquil?" Ice crawled up his hands and Leverette bit his tongue to silence his cry at the cold bit into his skin. He ducked back behind the safety of the corner and whipped his head back towards Zevran, first, then Meji, eyes wide. She crossed her arms and dropped her gaze to the floor, mouth drawn into a tight line. It was the question they'd both been trying to avoid having brought up. Tranquility was a punishment they'd both barely scraped past yet its effects were never far at hand to recall. Speaking about it, in the open, was almost as bad, and it left him mouth tasting like oil. 

"I didn't think you'd know," Levy shrugged, glancing away. He heard Zevran's armor rattle as he shifted his weight, uncomfortable at his display.

We have a Cricle in Antiva. I know of them but I do not know of them." He paused long enough to the mage to bring his eyes back and find the elf watching him carefully before continuing. "They are always like that?"

He nodded. "They-"

"They don't have a mind of their own," Meji muttered. Both the blond's lifted their brows, Zevran having forgotten she was there and Leverette in surprise that she was willing to talk about it. When she lifted her chin, he saw the anger in her eyes, turning her amber eyes to flares of the sun. She turned them on Zevran and held his gaze. "They've been brainwashed but that only works if they have a brain left. The templars do it. They take away the part of you that makes you you - your magic, and your jokes, and your feelings - _all of it_ \- just because you didn't say 'yes, Ser' or 'please, Ser'. Then they do whatever they want with you because you can't say no." 

Leverette didn't have the strength to keep watching, afraid of both what he saw in Meji - the courage to fight past the horror growing in her as it did in him - and in Zevran. What did he think, knowing that this was how the mages were treated? His heart pounded and his breath stuttered. What did Zevran think of mages? He hadn't said anything Leverette found uneasy, but they hadn't spoken of it directly in the first place. He didn't know and he'd brought the elf up here, in a tower full of mages, at its worst point. Now the option of Tranquility was being offered to him and what if he saw it as necessary? What if he saw it as-

Leverette felt a hand grab his and he swayed on his feet as he finally able to draw in a steadying breath. It wasn't an agreement of the Rite, yet it was not a spoken dismissal, yet Levy felt something in his chest loosen and he squeezed the elf's hand. "Owain should be with Wynne by now. We should get upstairs before anyone else is hurt." 

Meji shoved past him to round the corner, checking her shoulder into his chest, and he dragged Zevran after him when he followed her. There was a final group of blood mages pouring over a book and she discharged a shock of electricity into the room. The chanting pitched into screams before Leverette could keep them in place with ice or cornered with fire, and he shot her a look that went ignored. Zevran swept into the room to stun those that managed to remain standing after the onslaught. 

"Don't - don't kill me." A woman struggled to rise, her robed sticking close to her skin, sparks jumping. "I didn't mean for this death and destruction - no one did. We just wanted to free ourselves. Don't you remember what it was like? The templars watching - always watching."

Leverette left Meji with a squeeze of her shoulder to crouch before her. Above him, Zevran snorted. "We do not need to interrogate them. We know what happened." Leverette dismissed him and turned to her. 

"I did know what it was like. I still do. But you knew what Uldred was planning."

She shook her head. "He only said that Loghain would help us if we did what he asked and someone had to take the first step. The Chantry already thinks us malefactor, why not give them something real to believe it?"

Leverette went still and he felt Zevran do the same. The assassin couldn't kill so Loghain had turned to the Circle to draw him in instead? Did he think a second attempt would bring him down? Or did he assume that since he called it 'home' it would lower his guard? Break his spirit as familiar mage after mage fell to demons? Levy rose to his feet and cursed the man. For putting innocent lives in danger, for knowing this much about him, for the fact that it worked. 

"Amor-"

"This is _my fault_ ," Leverette snapped. "If I had died in Ostagr with the rest of them - if I had let you kill me-" he kicked a broken tile and ran his hands through his hair. Loghain was using the Circle, it's people, already exploited, to get to him. They were turning into abominations because of him! The mages, already dead and killed below, and those to be caught in the Rite of Annulment, his fault. 

"If I had killed you I would be drinking and fucking and dancing with the Crows. I also regret it." 

Leverette ran a shaking hand down his face. "Meji, I -" Her staff connected with his head and he scrambled backwards, tripping over an overturned table. "Meji-!"

"You don't get to say that," she shouted, pointing the end of her staff at him. He raised his hands. "I didn't put up with your whining for ten years, kicking you into shape and keeping the templars off you and you want to throw my hard work away because mages died? Mages die _all the time_ whether you're here or not!" She twirled the stave, leaving Levy to prod at the bump forming on his skull and for Zevran to face the pointed end. "And you! What to do you mean you agree with him? You were just holding hands!"

The elf laughed. "I mean it whole-heartedly. To be a Crow again, ah. To have all the coin and all the women - or men, of course - with no morals or responsibilities or, how did you put it, 'whining' mages tying me down."

Her face redenned and Leverette jumped to his feet, grabbing the staff before she could swing it at him. "No, no, he doesn't - Zevran -" Meji struggled against him, though he was taller than her and had the reach to pull it back. She settled after shooting a glare at him and Zevran in turn, tucking her staff back against her side. Leverette released a breath. 

"Are we going to kill the blood mage?" the elf asked.

He shook his head. "No one else is dying today, even Uldred if I can help it."

"He's gone mad." The woman had crawled to a corner as they fought, her knees drawn close to her chest. 

"All the more reason to hurry." Leverette ushered them out and quickened to the stairs. He expected Uldred or even Loghain himself to be behind it, but a web of the same red masses filled the stairwell. Leverette burned it and the smoke stung his eyes. He climbed, squinting, and though the smoke itched in the back of his throat he found it more difficult to breathe with each step. The air tasted like brimstone, sharp and hot, and murmurs echoed in the back of his mind. "There's something-"

"A demon," Meji finished. 

The scittering voices came together in a laugh and the smoke filled his senses. When he finally managed to rub the sting from his eyes, his father stood before him.


	6. Chapter 6

Christopher shoved a wooden bowl in his hands and Leverette's hands locked tight around it, nails digging faint scourges, grounding himself. His arms were stiff and when the man determined him up to keeping it in his hands without dropping the bowl to the ground, he moved to the table. It was a small, uneven piece of wood, and Levy knew every dark eye that dotted the surface from memory. He knew the way it rocked on its feet and the way the chairs screeched when they were pulled out. 

The entire kitchen was as he remembered it. The fire was blazing in the corner where the meat was stored, away from the grain the neighbors harvested and shared. In the mornings he would be woken by the popping of grease when his father cooked it for breakfast. The scent would sin into his clothes and the goats would bay at him uneasily until he hushed them with a word and brought them to the fields. The rooms were smaller, but he had grown, and he stumbled forward, awkward with his height in the low ceilinged cottage, shins knocking into the furniture. 

"You've slept in," Christopher said, settling himself at the table after placing another bowl next to Leverette's. He ladled a thick gruel into each, oats and honey and dried fruit, before handing it over. 

Leverette accepted it with a raised brow. Had he? It was unusual behavior for him to stay in bed past sunrise. The goats would complain without their milking and the boys down the lane would mock him for his laziness as they started the farm's work without him. Their parents would not be as forgiving; where he received pointed silence through breakfast they would get bumps in their heads and blisters from reprimanding cuffs and harder work. Leverette tugged his bowl close to him with a soft smile. His father was quiet and kind. His home was simple and comfortable. He would only have the bruises on his shins from his clumsiness to bear.

Shins. 

Leverette's bowl clattered on the table when he dropped his hands into his lap before curling them around his knees and then further, fingers pressing into the skin along both legs. Warm, smooth, flesh met his touch, and he heaved a breath. He bent his left leg and watched the muscles work, tears stinging his eyes. Bruises and scratches he'd earned from the months of travel were gone, aches soothed, and his leg whole. He was home. 

"Some dream?" his father asked, watching his face. Leverette raised his eyes to him, feeling them widen and his mouth grow slack. He didn't want to question it. He wanted the cottage on the edges of Denerim. He wanted his father, his leg, his life. He'd been sleeping - dreaming, the Blight was a nightmare he'd never have to face. There was no Archdemon to face, no treaties to make real, no Wardens to rebuild. His father was here, in front of him, alive, and he would remain so if he only didn't question it. 

"Papa?" His hands shook and he dug his fingers into his calves, committing the feeling of healthy skin to memory, doing the same with his father's face despite the way his vision swam. How he'd missed the sharp features of the man and the way they smoothed when he spoke, voice rough and rarely used. Leverette wanted his father to look at him one more time with the same warmth he'd remember, yet when Christopher met his gaze his eyes were dark and flat. Levy swore. "Tel est le rêve , non?" Christoper only collected the bowls and the mage rose to his feet. "I'll let the goats out," he murmured, and the sky outside was green, the clouds floating rock. Leverette dropped his shoulders and folded his arms across his middle, tight. 

If he was in the Fade, the others would be somewhere nearby. While Meji might recognize the world for what it was, Zevran would have little to distance himself from the dreams the demon forced upon them, feeding on them. Leverette started forward with a shaky step, his other leg unresponsive as the illusion shattered and he was left with the crude remade. Behind him, the hut burned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leverette is half Orlesian on his mother's side (also where he gets the magic from) and asked Christopher "this is the dream, isn't it?"
> 
> He has a whole backstory that is not very nice, the short version being the templars chased him out of his first home with his father, then burned down his second home to get him.


	7. Chapter 7

There were wisps abound in the Fade, their direction-less energies attracted to the purpose of the mage among their midsts. Several bobbed alongside him as he walked the twisting paths and Leverette put his trust in them to guide him over the safest bridges spanning the different realms of the spirits and demons that called this place home. A mage’s will won out over logic in the Fade, but concern ruled his mind and the paths that may have still supported his footfalls despite their degradation from the loss of the spirit that lived there crumbled further at a look. His friends needed him - the Circle needed him - and neither would get the help he could provide if he was endlessly falling into the depths of the Fade.

His worried brought spectators.

Fear demons were a twisted sort of comfort from the times he’d fought his way out of nightmares, the notches in the wood of his old hut carefully crafted by their powers to send him shaking and sweating at the sound of their feasts. Despair was another familiar demon, and a chill ran down his back at their soft weepings as he wondered if any plagued him before. Rage demons were a new yet unsurprising addition, and Terror demons scurried between them all. They followed his trek, feeding off the emotions in his wake or watched from a distance waiting for their chance. Leverette gripped his staff tight. He wouldn’t give them an opening. They couldn’t catch him in a dream, not this time, and he took strength in the knowledge.

The others, however, were more susceptible - Zevran most of all. The elf didn’t have the mage’s sense to tell dream from demon and where Meji might have wrestled her way out of her hold it was likely Zevran was still enthralled in whatever the sloth demon caught him in. If it was anything like the type of dream Levy had, he needed to him. Fast.

Movement shifted in the corner of his eye and he caught a rage demon break from the cover of a boulder. It floated in the way all things did in the distorted gravity the spirits attempted to recreate in their world, and it could hide the deep pits on the creature’s face but not the hate that spilled down its back like lava. Something caught its interest and, with no lead himself, Levy had to believe it would bring him closer to his companions.

The wisps followed him, their forms brightening and dimming in their own form of language and Leverette grabbed a hold of one with his will and sent it after the rage demon. Another trailed after it with no direction, and he mourned the loss of the majority of his light. The green sky seemed to suck even more color of the landscape than before until the ground was black, charred and smoking. It might have had to do with the girl standing in the middle of it all rather than the wisps.

“Meji!” Leverette slipped and stumbled the rest of the way across the blackened scape to reach her and yanked her around with a tug of her shoulders. They rose and fell in sharp drops, her breath coming in a hiss between clenched teeth and sweat dripped from her chin with every pant. It soaked into her hairline, making the hair there frizz. She was tight under his hand, and he squeezes her arm. “Did you get the demon?”

Meji cast a glare in his direction and he opened his mouth to repeat himself only to lose the words in a wheeze when she slammed a fist into his stomach. Leverette doubled and tried to watch her face as his vision blurred with tears. Her mask of steel melted quickly into one of horror and she grabbed a hold of the arm he flung out to her to steady himself.

“What in the Maker’s name-” He coughed through he rest of his oath.

“The demons - I just had to know it was you.”

“Your first thought to do that was to punch me?”

She shook her head. “Any demon could make it look like a punch hurt.” She laughed at the face he threw at her and she entwined her fingers with his. “Only you would cry from a hit, though.”

“For the love of-” Meji laughed again and Leverette shook his hand out of hers. She punched him again, softer, and he flinched away.

“I’m glad you’re still you.”

Leverette nodded, pressing against his tender side lightly, wincing at the sting. His skin was hot and sore only because he expected it to be so - there would be no true damage from the hot here - but his physical body asleep in Kinloch would be sporting a new bruise. He dropped his hand and gave her a wry smile. It fell apart in a heavy exhale. “They didn’t…you’re not harmed? Were your dreams-?”

The elf waved his concern away with a roll of her wrist. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.” Leverette bit the inside of his cheek and something in his look caught her off guard. Her expression hardened. “What kind of dreams did they - they’re going to regret it - I’m glad I burned them all to a crisp!” Meji stamped her foot and watched the ashes settle back atop her boot. “We’ll get that damn demon.”

Levy didn’t doubt her. “We need to find Zevran first. I don’t know if anyone in the lower levels of the Circle were caught up in this spell, either. I didn’t even know how to find you at first and if that demon is feeding off is…we can’t spend much time here.” He leaned on his staff and inhaled the scent of the Fade, swallowing a mouthful of sulfur and static. He promised to save Kinloch. He promised to keep the templars away. He promised to rid the tower of abominations and demons.

He wished Alistair was here. Someone else’s whinings might have distracted from his own bubbling up in his throat. Someone else’s sword might have made it easier. He was angry and selfish when he made the decision and he regretted it now.

A cackle from a Despair demon drifted from a corner of the field and Leverette twisted to find it. “I suppose we’ll start looking.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is in need of an update. I've been working on that new library au if you've been reading my other fics. That's been going just as slow, though. I've graduated from college this weekend and I have a lot of free time now, so I'm hoping to pick up writing. 
> 
> Thanks for sticking through with the giant pause on this one!


	8. Chapter 8

Leverette extinguished the fire blocking their way forward with a layer of frost, working off the pure energy Meji pulsed to disband the darkspawn forcing them deeper into the dream. Their twisted shapes tore, thick flesh peeling away and slaughtering off with the fire beneath until the rage demons were exposed from their disguise. Leverette strengthened his frost spell with the last wave of Meji's magic and froze them for her to slip between their raised claws and shatter them. She dusted off her hands on her robes and the ash melted off the fabric a moment later. 

"Do you Wardens only dream of darkspawn," Meji asked, nose winkled as he examined her fingernails for any lingering dust. She picked at one for a moment and when she raised her eyes at the silence following her question, Leverette glanced away. The Wardens dreamed the Archdemon and the actions of the darkspawn that followed it. Seeing them in the Fade, where dreams shaped reality, he wouldn't have thought much of their appearance if they hadn't been inside a dream already - and one not in the making of a Warden. Zevran worked with them, bound to the Order by more than just a sense of duty, but not by blood. The knowledge that Zevran followed him long enough to bring darkspawn into his nightmares sent his hairs on end. 

"Sometimes." Leverette gave the remains of the demons one last look before turning away. Both of his companions were experiencing attacks and it unsettled him. The net of sleep cast over him by the demon in the Circle wrapped him in a fantasy to keep him placid, blissfully unaware he was fed on for as long as the demon desired. Did it give no care for what Meji and Zevran dreamed and threw them into the Fade with no prior construction, not to feed but to keep them out of the way? Or was the spell over all of them and his awareness of it the key that broke it - their wanting dreams now up to the whims of demons? "Let's move before any more show up."

Their constant movement did little to prevent the dream darkspawn to find them. The demon, its original plan thwarted by the mage's consciousness, shaped a maze around what remained of Zevran's nightmare. Long hallways brought them to dead ends that forced them to double back, allowing the darkspawn to catch up. A multitude of doors turned their sense of direction into circles. Every second spent turning around to wander hopelessly down another path was a second more the demon had to feed, a second more that Zevran had to endure his nightmare. Leverette couldn't feel the weakness growing in his physical body in the Circle but his heard pounded in the effort of moving forward and his robes stuck to his skin with sweat. They couldn't keep guessing for much longer.

He lost his patience at another dead end and broke through the wall with a burst of pure mana, one hand on an ore of lyrium, another beating a fist against the brick until the brick tearing at his skin shattered like glass. Demons shrieked and Levy followed their retreating figures. Meji's dreams attracted their horde of spirits greedy for the pain and terror they brought, and there was no reason not to try it again. So they followed the screaming; high pitched wailing that forced them to clasp their hands over their ears as the demons that took their pleasure from the outskirts of the nightmare grew closer. If demons were good for anything other than haunting the dreams of the innocent and serving as an excuse for the templars, it was finding those in fear. 

Zevran had a reason to fear, and Leverette understood it for himself when he shoved his way through the Fade to find him. Leverette found himself in an interior balcony overlooking a large, open room. Columns supported the high ceiling above, and each were decorated by a pair of shackles glinting in the torchlight. Tables were scatted between them, some clean and others stained with all manners of fluids, others covered in nails or their own shackles. One corner held a man, his face shadowed by the forms of two others standing around him. Leverette found himself leaning forward, hands gripping the balcony railing until his knuckles paled to listen to their laughter. 

"-you scream yet."

"We've only been going easy on you."

"I'd be disappointed if you held back." A chuckle was broken by a pained groan and Leverette didn't feel the hand placed over his. This was Zevran's nightmare - cast into a day of torture from early days of assassin training. Horror filled him at the implications. Zevran's training was comparable to this, on some level, as terrible as facing the rack. Leverette had asked him of his past before, was interested in how he found himself along his path, and had never given a thought as to whether Zevran wished to speak of it. The elf joked about it, about _this_.

"Zevran!"

The elf flinched and the two men laughed. One shifted enough to let the light cross his face, brining dark bruises around one swollen eye and a deep cut along his jaw. His other eye widened, familiarity dilating his pupils instantly. "Warden, you - you aren't supposed to be here." Zevran tugged at a chain. 

"A dream, Zev." His voice wavered. 

"You have to fight those ugly demons," Meji shouted for him, and Leverette intertwined their hands long enough to give hers a squeeze. 

Zevran laughed again though it ended in a wheeze. "We all have our demons, my dear. Mine is this test, to become a Crow."

"It's a stupid test made by stupid demons."

Leverette drew in a breath, taking strength from Meji's determination. Zevran wasn't a mage, he wouldn't see through the facade the demons wore to shape this reality, and while Zevran believed it his words meant little. "You're already a Crow. You were ordered to kill me and you left their guild to fight a Blight with me. We're in the Circle now but a demon's stopped us." One of the elves standing over Zevran snarled and fire jumped to his fingertips at the sight of pointed teeth. 

"You do have a pretty face I could not dare to mar," Zevran said. "A...a bad dream-" 

His shackled yanked as one of the elves turned them tighter. "He's questioning us."

The other hissed in agreement. "There'll be severe punishment for that."

Leverette let the flames wrap around his fingers and pool in his palms until a fireball clenched in his hands. "Yes, there will be."


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuses for how long this took

The flames died when the last Crow fell. Their elven shapes were twisted by the demons that finally showed themselves to both mage and man, and Zevran watched Meji scatter their essence with scuffs of her boots. The Fade reclaimed the remnants before they could flutter back to the floor slowly reshaping itself from the torture room of Zevran’s past, to return to the memories the Fade was made of. Leverette eased the elf’s hands free of the chains that bound him and helped him to sit upright, thumbs rubbing gentle circles on the marks left on his wrists.

“Are you alright?”

“Nothing like a good racking, no?” The elf chuckled, a dry sound that rattled in his chest and reached as far as the lump in his throat. Leverette glanced up from the bruises beneath his fingers. Zevran ran his free hand along the edge of the table they sat on. His face was blank aside from the furrow of his brows that grew when his fingers curled around the edge of the torture table. “So very…bracing.”

“What happened,” Leverette asked, urging him with a soft squeeze of his wrist. “What happened with you and the Crows?” The elf gave him a rue smile and remained silent, staring at the wood warped with blood and time, palm running along the grains. Leverette wanted to trace them, too, the faint cracks and stained rivulets. Which were made by his blood and the blood of comrades? Which brought about the nightmare created by the demon?

“Zevran?” Levy tightened his grip around the elf’s wrist and panicked at the way his fingers slipped through skin and muscle. “What’s happening?

A similar waver caught in Zevran’s throat and Levy watched him swallow around it, his eyes growing wide with every unsuccessful attempt. Meji turned away from her dutiful defiling of the demon corpses at the sudden silence, and caught their eyes. "He’s waking up.”

“Where are you going?” Zevran finally managed, just above a whisper. His arm moved through Leverette’s when he tried to grab a hold of him, pull him close again. “Don’t-”

“I’ll find you,” Levy promised, instead of listening to the rest. “You’re going to wake up, away from here. I’ll find you and we’ll make the demon face a nightmare of its own.”

A smirk crossed Zevran’s face, faint and watery, but familiar, and a ghost of a laugh escaped his parted lips. “I will try to think on fitting ideas while I wait, impatiently, dear Warden.” The chuckle faded with the disappearance of his grin, and Leverette was left with his arm outstretched, hand empty. It found itself filled, again, with a smaller and darker hand, and he closed his fingers around Meji’s.

“Stupid demons.” He agreed with a low hum, surprised at how much comfort just her touch and her simple words brought, and he was tugged out of the thought when she yanked on his arm to encourage him upright. The Fade was unpredictable and he resisted, weakly, to see if the elf would return, but she didn’t give him the time to look back before she was pulling him forward and away. “If we’re going to show them who’s really to be feared we have to hit him hard and fast.”

“We’ll need to find where his lair is in the Fade first. We won’t be able to attack him directly outside of it.” Leverette followed after her, slowly, at first, until Zev’s fear quickened his steps, and he heard Meji rush to his side to follow when he passed her. “Zevran’s not a mage but he wouldn’t have fully woken up if it still lives and that means there’s still a chance he can be attacked again - we can be attacked again. If we can find more of the Terror demons and chase them to wherever they’re running off to, we might be able to find where it’s hiding.”

“Boo,” she said, and rammed an elbow into his side when he raised a brow at her without breaking stride. “If we’re going to go hunting Terror demons again we have to find them, and you’re the jumpy one.”

He frowned at her, Meji’s attempt at lightening the mood pulling him down that much further. Zevran had been tortured. Now, in his past, in his dreams, Maker - and what had he done but speak of his ill-fortunes? They were both shipped off at a young age to an Order, but Levy had never faced a rack. And demons were feeding off the memory. All of their memories, brought forth from whatever hidden place they were sent to, hoped to be forgotten, were fed of off.

What other acts had Zevran been put through before they showed up?

Levy’s hands were clenched, tight, into fists, and Meji wedged her own between his fingers, easing his open to hold his hand lightly. He squeezed hers, lightly, forgiven.

“There’ll be no shortage of Terrors to find,” he told her, after a while of walking.

She snorted and waved her free hand at the first spirit they found. It perched, sated by the feast presented to it earlier, on the edge of the shattered dream. “All yours,” she told him, and Levy felt her eyes stay on him for the minute it took to prepare himself. He wasn’t sure he wanted to face another fight if they were seen too early, particularly with the arsenal the demon had to defend itself with now that it had all the horror at its disposal. Meji let out a short cough. “I could-”

“No, no, it’s okay,” he said, tongue thick with the lie. “I just…I’m just trying not to get distracted.”

“It is a pretty ugly one.” Meji was still looking at him and he attempted a smile for her. The lilt of his lips fell short and he shook his hand free to wipe his palms on his robes.

“Let’s get out of here.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't liked any of my writing for this arc of Levy's, so it's put me in a sour mood to write this. I've been rewriting previous chapters and I'll replace it all when I'm finished before moving on to the next. It will be the same plot and same turn of events if you don't care to reread this.

There were no known schools of magic for predicting the future, yet, as Meji had said, there was another ugly demon after that, another one after, and another one after that. Their twisted, dark forms grew in size and complexity the further in the Fade they followed them, and Leverette took them all down with a burst of mana. After each one, Meji took a hold of his hand again, and he didn't know they were shaking until she interlaced their fingers and squeezed gently. 

"You holding up okay?"

He was...something. Okay, he supposed, was some part of it. Terrified made up the rest. He had little idea of where Zevran had gone after breaking free of his dream, although the hope was some sort of conciousness. He had even less of an idea if the elf would remember the dream and the promise of a coming talk, or of how to start up the conversation needed to broach the topic. 

"There's just...a lot of demons. The mana imbalance..." he said instead, and made a show of wiping the sweat gathering across his upper lip - from nerves more than perspiration. As many demons as the two of them stumbled upon, many were more content to lounge in the sated comfortableness that came after a feast, as gruesome as one made from the fear and hatred that all but oozed from their pores as they dreamed the nightmares inflicted upon them. It didn't make their defense a priority, more of an itch in the palms on his hands cured only by keeping his guard up and a flicker of magic always at the tips of his fingers. There was more room in his twisting gut for disgust, to watch the demons gorge themselves on pain, and Meji hadn't, so far, looked twice whenever the magic boiled too hot under his skin and he sent the denizens back to their own realms in a cloud of ash and Fade dust. Not that it made himself feel better, but the heat that raced up his arms and the near pain of scraping his limits low consumed what confusing rush of emotions still rolled in his stomach.

It seemed such luck was up. Meji frowned and he ran a hand through his hair. "I'll feel better when we can find some lyrium."

He should have known better. The difficulties of keeping his thoughts off his face had gotten him in more than a bit of trouble at the Circle, and Meji was particularly good at finding the little details outside of the necessity that came with the place. She frowned, a sharp line of her lips that cut easily through his words, and she tugged his arm, hard, in the direction of the nearest vein, grip tight enough to bruise his knuckles. He winced when she finally let go, flexing his fingers to work the blood back into them. Meji crossed her arms and raised her brow. 

"What are you waiting for?" He swallowed and she rolled her wrist at the stagger of silver stones. It was cold under his hand, more so than the Fade around them. Where the air ceased to be void of heat, the stone leeched it, stretching its points towards any source of warmth - and magic was replenished in its place. Levy shuddered, goosebumps rising up his arm as his blood froze over with the sudden rush and he gasped at the cold that filled his chest, like an icy gulp of water settling in his gut. It burned away the tired, empty feeling, and he sighed deep as he let his arm drop. 

"I want to blast that blighted sloth demon into the next Age," he grumbled, aloud, it seemed, for Meji grabbed his arm again, even tighter, until the shock in his eyes settled into something more solid. Determination, maybe, but certainly resolved. 

"Me, too. It turned apprentices into abominations. It made the templars kill us. The mages fighting burned my bed!" She kicked at the hard ground with the heel of her boot. "It hurt you."

Levy grimaced. "It hurt Zevran, and that hurt me. The nightmare was no work book, either."

"So I said."

"Are you ready?"

She grinned. "To kick some butts? Always."

"This might be the first time I've been happy to hear you say that," he said, though there was little joy in his voice as he called magic to his hands. The hair on his arms rose as static danced just above his skin, and a spark arched over a knuckle as he gathered it in his hands. Meji did the same, holding her hands out to him.

"It's like those dreams where you dream you're waking up, but you're really still asleep," she sighed, and dragged her fingers down his arm. She jerked when he sent the same spell at her. 

"Let's hope it's not." Electricity snapped down his spine and he flinched. 

The next time he moved, his limbs slapped against cold marble as he startled awake at the top of a staircase. The sky above was blocked by a low arched ceiling, narrowing as it rose to a large iron door to the upper floors of the enchanter quarters. Or, so he wanted to believe if he was truly back in the Circle. It could have been another trick - a dream within a dream as Meji had said - but the blood crusting the edges of his robes and the fearful shouts of mages left behind on the floors below sounded out of place for a demon that wished to see its prey content to lay where it may. 

Running away seemed a better option. Turning tail, fleeing, running until everything hurt enough to block out the Blight, the Archdemon, and the promise he had made to Redcliffe's Arl. 

Meji stirred besides him and Levy closed his eyes long enough to feel the ground steady beneath him before blinking back up at the ceiling. Next to her, Zevran sat upright, rubbing at his temples. Pain was worked out of his expression as a smile pushed its way across his face.

"Pleasant nap, amor?"


	11. Chapter 11

The hand thrust into his face was slimy with sweat and crusted with blood, but the fingers were free of swelling and the wrist colored only the dark tone of Zevran's normal complextion, and not the whirls of blues and purples left behind by tight bindings. Leverette reached for it and tumbled forward when his knees refused the weight put upon them. His mind had been his own throughout the detour across the Fade, more so refreshed with the surge from a lyrium vein, but his body had been left behind to be preyed upon by the demon. Shock ran through him in small tremors and he sagged against the elf while the walls around settled into their proper places, taking solace in the heat against his chest even as hesitant arms wrapped around his middle to keep him upright. Long fingers drummed out an impatient beat down his spine.

They'd made it out. Zevran had woken from his dream to return back behind the Veil. His soul was not more lost amongst the broken landscape, forever doomed to relive the worst of his memories- and Maker, what a memory it was. Zevran had been caught, tight, in its grasp, enough to make him blind to the lies around him and lash out when Levy tried to point them out. Whatever concerns Zevran waved away about his past, its hold on the elf was still crushingly tight. 

Levy hadn't been afraid of Zevran turning on him in a long while. His nightmares did little to instill even a bit of it in him, but there was doubt. How much of Zevran's confidence was true? Levy craned his neck just enough to free his mouth from catching on Zevran's shirt to mutter out a, "We need to-"

"Go? I am in agreement."

"I- no, not that. I mean, we need to talk. About-"

"Our next steps, yes? As in a battle plan, I see. For surely there is nothing of more import we should be discussing other than the swift death of the demon inside." Zevran spoke quickly, and Levy frowned, pushing back against the hands that pressed him even closer against his chest to make sure Zevran could see it. The elf spread his hands, lifting one up to weight his argument. "We could speak of other matters, all the while the demon consumed what other innocents it his in its thrall until they all die and we have no one to save, or we could attack it while it is surprised by out escape."

"I don't want this to be forgotten."

"I did not say to forget such matters. I said 'another time', no? Please, we have little time to waste. They can call the Crows a murder, but they will not say such things of you."

"Zev-"

The elf lifted a finger to his lips. "I have worked hard to earn my title. I would do so again, in the exact same way, if it would mean I could stand with your here today. That is all that needs answering for the time being."

"He's not wrong, you know. About the mages dying while you two just stand there and make kissy eyes at each other." Levy's shoulders jump at Meji's agreement, and he cursed himself for forgetting she was there. She'd composed herself while he'd all but fallen into Zevran's arms for a moment of respite and much needed courage. She leaned against the banister of the staircase for support, a finger scratching a shallow furrow in the wood while one foot tapped out an impatient beat against the first step. She jabbed a finger in Levy's direction, and he reeled back as if it truly had touched him. "They'll never get the chance to make those kinds of faces if you just shut up and move it." 

She stormed off, up the final flight of stairs to where the sloth demon had made its layer, a trickle of force magic making the dust on each step tremble with every heavy footfall as anger boiled over. At him or the demon, he wasn't quite sure. A mix of both, most likely. Her dream had been of its own, and he hadn't helped her as much as hindered her as they progressed through the Fade. His false words certainly didn't do him any credit, either.

"I am much more motivated when I am told I am right," Zevran said. 

"Guess I'll just have to prove you wrong."

The elf grimaced, the humor falling from his face as quickly as the strength in his voice. "In this case, I certainly hope you do."


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter should pretty much just be wrapping this arc up!

Zevran was not proven wrong. Every hope was proven wrong. The top floor of Kinloch was wrong in its entirety. There was no floor, only an undulating mass of flesh that was the sloth demon, as fear and nightmares let it grow fat and lazy. The windows were covered in rot that crept up the walls to block out the sun, throwing shadows in the corners to hide the corpses piled up there. Mages of all ages, from the youngest apprentice to a senior-most enchanter were stacked high, their minds unable to take the burden of their dreams, bodies unable to keep up with the rate of their wasting away.

Leverette covered his mouth with his sleeve at the smell, choking back a gag as Meji heaved where she stood. The mages downstairs had been beaten and bleeding, more willing to accept the fate of death's hand rather than shake the outstretched claw of a demon for one more breath. They'd fought for it, whether their last gasp was one of relief or fear, but those here had fought for nothing but a lost cause - if they had fought at all. They were sacrifices, offerings to the demon, if the deep cuts on their arms and stained books in their hands were any indication. They'd wanted this. They'd worked for this.

Death. Betrayal. 

One mage still stood. Levy slipped and staggered his way across the rot. He wasn't sure he could trust his voice to be heard across the hall, as tight and raw as his throat was. His mouth went dry at the sight of bloody robs, red, white finger prints stretching up the stitches, and the contents of his stomach mixed with the dirty muck on the floor. 

Meji recovered first, and her hands were covered in viscera to her elbows by the time she caught up to him. She struck a trembling finger at the mage and spat. "I knew you were up to something, Uldred."

He cackled, and his voice cracked with a snap of the Fade. "Of course you did, mageling. You know everything in this prison." His laughter died off into a series of tsks, and he shook his head before raising his hands to his temples to hold himself still. "You knew this tower was no place of learning. You knew we were watched, constantly, endlessly. You knew we had a right to be free. You knew there was only one way to do so."

Uldred spread his arms out, wide, and Levy flinched at the fluid that flew his way. He flinched again when Meji wiped it from the corner of her mouth. 

"Don't listen to him."

"Don't tell me what to do," she snapped. "I know when to stop listening to crazy."

"Oh, you do, you do," Uldred agreed, and the vigorous shake of his head made his eyes bounce. "You turned your ears away when we said something dangerous. You turned you eyes away when we read something forgotten. There's a difference between snitching on the mages in the corner and unraveling a breakout in the making."

Meji's hands balled into fists and Levy stepped forward to take one in his hand. She yanked her arm back but he wedged his fingers between hers until they loosened. Another wave of nausea rolled through him and he tried to believe he pulled Meji closer to keep her from hurling herself at his, throwing out hands with nails like claws down his face, rather than for support when his knees went weak as resolve left him. Would it have been so terrible to let the templars make their rounds through the tower? Abominations were one thing - but a mage? He could pretend the demons inhabiting human bodies were nothing more than monsters wearing skins, but Uldred was still flesh and spirit - corrupted, but not possessed. Cold murder was a templar's job. "There had to be other ways." 

"The Libretarians would give us nothing but bigger rooms with bigger windows. Easier to throw ourselves out of," he hissed, spittle coating his lips with every clack of his teeth. If he kept talking, maybe the templars downstairs would grow too restless, like some form of Harrowing. They'd break their promise of leaving the danger to the Wardens and head up with swords at the ready. 

"You should have tried that first," Meji shouted. She tore free of his grasp, magic flickering like a wild animal between her fingers. "Maybe if you died then, you could have saved us all the trouble of doing it now!"

"Meji!"

She let the magic pooling in her hands streak towards Uldred, and when the lightening hit him, the sloth demon roared. 

"The fun begins, no?" Zevran said from somewhere to his side. Levy caught him circling the beast, daggers close to his torso. Meji showed her teeth as a spell bounced off a shield she'd erected, before it cracked and Uldred tore at his own wrist with a cracked nail whereas Levy couldn't find it in himself to call upon the weakest of his own arsenal. 

Had this been going on while he was still an apprentice? While he studied his letters, Uldred had been studying blood magic? Where Irving was interested in Jowan and his fancy of the Chantry girl he'd turned blind eyes to a real threat? As if it was some sort of distraction to keep attention away from the true crime occurring amongst the mages - a lesson almost. Those practicing forbidden arts would be found out and punished, with Jowan as the example. Yet, they hadn't been, because here Uldred was, the mind behind the acts, slicing open the vein in his wrist to call upon the power coursing through his blood.

"Are you feeling sleepy again, dear Warden?" He blinked and saw Zevran working his way through the sloth demon, twisting around slow, strong swings of its paws to slash as its underbelly. "I do not suggest another nap anytime soon, unless you wish to wake alone. Help would be appreciated."

Levy nodding, mouth twisting into a thin line as he called upon his magic. It slipped through his fingers like sand as he tried to work against the spells Uldred cast. His skin felt slimey, his movements clumsy, Uldred sucking out the willpower from Levy's blood as easily as he sucked the mana from his own. A thin layer of ice across the leg moving to knock Zevran was all he could manage for the moment. It was enough for the elf to dodge with a second more to escape, and Zevran took the extra moment to slice another deep cut into the demon's soft hide.

Meji was flagging - what mana she had left after exiting the Fade was steadily wittling away as she fought off the blood magic tossed at her. A burst of mana wouldn't help here, and neither would a brief respite with another coating of ice. Uldred was too knowledgeable, too sure of himself, too powerful.

"The Litany of Adralla."

The spell gathering in Levy's hands spilled to the floor in a slow drip of liquid fire as a corpse pile in the corner roused itself. A mage tumbled down the side to make room for another, much more lively, and it clawed its way through the tangle to focus on him. Grey curls stuck to his face with sweat, joining a beard matted with blood framing gaunt cheeks. It was no loner a question of how Irving had been lost during the Templar's initial search of the tower. Levy had little courage to approach him and what safety the bodies provided him as the First Enchanter dug out a book from within. It took more effort that he thought Irving had to open the giant tome, and blood oozed, slow, from a deep gash above his brow as shaking fingers searched through the pages.

"No blood mage may cast so long as it is spoken. Uldred will fall," the First Enchanter hissed.

It felt like a Silence. Cold power passed over him before sinking into his skin, beneath his bones, searching for a power within his being. It didn't boil his blood or twist the mana flowing through it, only numbed him from the inside out before moving onto the next caster in its determined quest to cut off the flow of malevolent magic. Levy watched it move to Meji, and how she shuddered and flung her next spell wide before twisting to wrap her arms around herself. It released her just as quick, and she raised her eyes to his, pupils blown wide. 

Uldred screamed. 

There was no pain in his shout, only annoyance as the magic gathering about him was cut off abruptly. He stretched an arm forward as if he reached just a bit further he could grasp it again, but no matter where he moved he would not be able to take hold of his magic again until Irving stopped reciting. Uldred learned of it, too, casting a glare first at the Enchanter, and then at Leverette.

Meji was too close to Uldred to move away in time. Zevran continued his assault on the sloth demon.

Levy moved himself in front of the First Enchanter.


End file.
